India, June 13 -- Though they evoke revulsion, depictions of violence also occasionally convey moral decay and force one to confront the existence of unthinkable realities. Urdu short-story writer Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-1955), who saw it as an elemental instinct that can serve as a vehicle for existential revelation, understood the potential of violence to reflect the innate wickedness of humankind. Manto's graphic literary response to the catastrophe of Partition has cemented his stature. His harrowing writing about communal strife, political repression and sexual exploitation stemming from the cruelty of these new borders puts him in a category alongside two chroniclers of the Holocaust, Primo Levi (1919-1987) and Tadeusz Borowski (1922-1951). There has been a proliferation of translations over the past three decades but the Anglophone world still hasn't been exposed to the thematic diversity of his lean, ironic prose. Manto's essential identity is not tied to Toba Tek Singh, Babu Gopi Nath, Hatak, Phundane Ram Khilawin and the like. He also told familiar stories in an unsettling, psychologically ambiguous idiom, and these stories, a trove of the unsaid, rendered with extraordinary candour, are seldom translated or anthologised. In Bismillah and Other Stories, translator and literary historian Rakshanda Jalil presents 25 of Manto's less-discussed stories. "There is more than Thanda gosht, Khol do or Kali shalwar - stories that offended many (including the progressives) on grounds of perversion and obscenity," Jalil writes, adding that the general reading public now believes that these dark pieces are typical of the writer's oeuvre. The truth is that Manto's world is peopled by the good as much as by the bad. This selection, then, provides a glimpse into a remarkably eclectic oeuvre. Manto always ridiculed pseudo-religiosity and formulaic ritualism. Surprisingly, though, 786 (the numeric representation of the Quranic verse, Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim / In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful) always appeared at the beginning of all his stories, even the censured ones. This anthology begins with a short piece of auto fiction titled Saadat Hasan, which blends personal details with fictional elements. In it, Manto seeks to resolve the dichotomy: "I know that whatever he has written, the first thing he writes on the front page is 786, which means "In the name of Allah," and this man, who appears to be an atheist, becomes a believer on paper. At the same time, it is the paper Manto, who can be crushed between your fingers like paper-thin almond shells, whereas the real Manto is not one to be broken by hammers! It is a crafted ploy to deceive the reader as the word (paper) is everlasting, whereas physical presence is ephemeral. Still, the author asserts that paper Manto can be crushed, but real Manto, Sadat Hasan, cannot." Contemporary global political movements never escaped the writer's scrutiny and this anthology includes such stories as A Letter to Uncle Sam and An Incident from 1919. The latter, which addresses the slaughter at Jallianwala Bagh, is told through the valiant acts of two Amritsari sex workers and their brother. Raconteur Tahila Kanjar grappled with the mounted White soldiers firing at innocent citizens, and died in a volley of shots. The massacre and the death of Tahila were fresh when Shamshad and Almas were called to perform for an English sahib. Dressed like princesses, they provided merriment. The twist is in the tail: "We are Tahila's sisters - sisters of that martyr whom you riddled with bullets simply because he possessed a soul that loved his country. We are his beautiful sisters. Come and besmirch our fragrant bodies with the molten lead of your lust. But before you do that, let us spit on your faces - once!" they state. This is a gripping alternative account to dominant nationalist historiography. Each of these stories reveals new dimensions of ethical bankruptcy, hypocrisy, vice and venality, while admiring the unsung morality of gangsters and pimps. Rakshanda Jalil's translation of Bismillah and Other Stories effectively highlights both the colloquial idiom of these pieces and the narrative momentum that makes Manto's work so distinctive....